Today's Stichomancy for Ice Cube

The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from The Marvelous Land of Oz by L. Frank Baum:

"That is quite impossible!" protested the Scarecrow. "Why do you think, my dear friend, that we have gone astray?"

"Why, here before us is a great field of sunflowers -- and I never saw this field before in all my life."

At these words they all looked around, only to find that they were indeed surrounded by a field of tall stalks, every stalk bearing at its top a gigantic sunflower. And not only were these flowers almost

137 blinding in their vivid hues of red and gold, but each one whirled around upon its stalk like a miniature wind-mill, completely dazzling the vision of the beholders and so mystifying them that they knew not which way to turn.

The Marvelous Land of Oz

The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell:

longed to say.

"When may I speak to your father?"

"The sooner the better," she said, hoping that perhaps he would release the crushing pressure on her rings before she had to ask him to do it.

He leaped up and for a moment she thought he was going to cut a caper, before dignity claimed him. He looked down at her radiantly, his whole clean simple heart in his eyes. She had never had anyone look at her thus before and would never have it from any other man, but in her queer detachment she only thought that he looked like a calf.

Gone With the Wind

The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso:

LVIII Sleep to his quiet dales exiled fled From these unquiet nights, and oft in vain The soldiers restless sought the god in bed, But most for thirst they mourned and most complain; For Juda's tyrant had strong poison shed, Poison that breeds more woe and deadly pain, Than Acheron or Stygian waters bring, In every fountain, cistern, well and spring:

LIX And little Siloe that his store bestows

The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from The Beasts of Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs:

There was another, later, however, that would bring her to the Channel port in time to reach the address the stranger had given her husband before the appointed hour.

Summoning her maid and chauffeur, she issued instructions rapidly. Ten minutes later she was being whisked through the crowded streets toward the railway station.

It was nine-forty-five that night that Tarzan entered the squalid "pub" on the water-front in Dover. As he passed into the evil-smelling room a muffled figure brushed past him toward the street.

"Come, my lord!" whispered the stranger.

The Beasts of Tarzan